Just “going through the motions”?

Wow.

The obvious question is, Am I giving God everything?

Especially as a Catholic, it’s easy to fall into just “going through the motions.” And Catholics have a lot of motions: sacraments, the sign of the cross, the sign of peace, lining up and receiving communion, genuflecting, standing up, sitting down and kneeling.

Once a young (or new) Catholic has learned how to mumble convincingly through the amazingly long and complicated (and spectacularly beautiful and powerful!) Nicene Creed, he or she has officially arrived at being able to “go through the motions” of the mass with complete anonymity and complacency.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I think having “motions” at all is a bad thing, because the reasons and ideas behind all of those motions point to Christ and to submitting ourselves to His mercy, love and grace. Actions and rituals are powerful.When our eyes are opened to the beautiful reasons and purpose behind them, they can do nothing but enrich and deepen our faith like nothing else.

During times in my life that I was unsure about my faith or I was struggling with “not feeling anything” in my faith, the many motions of my religion were a part what kept me going. They gave me a structure to fall back on, and their universality gave me a sense of community that helped me realize I can never go through something on Earth that nobody else has gone through before.

You know, I once heard from a priest that we are all called to be saints–every human being on Earth.

Saints are just human beings who said “yes” to God and gave him everything.God calls different people to different vocations, but He calls us all to be saints by living our lives in Him and according to His amazing plan for each of us. St. Gianna was a wife, mother and doctor. St. Teresa of Avila was a nun. St. Augustine was a gambler, womanizer, and had illegitimate children before the faithful prayers of his mother, St. Monica, helped bring him to God.

The wonderful thing about saints, a friend once told me, is that among all the hundreds (or thousands?) of them that we know of, there is somebody we can relate to–and somebody who knows just what prayers to take to Christ for us. There are saints who struggled with losing a spouse, with alcoholism, sexual immorality, materialism, apathy and vanity–just like us.

Mother Theresa once said that the world doesn’t need more good people–the world needs more holy people. I think that there are a lot of generally “good” people walking around, but how many people are striving for holiness?

This is not some theological mumbo-jumbo! If we settle for striving to be “good,” we’re selling ourselves short.

Holiness is simply having a deeper relationship with God, so that He can work in you, through you and with you more seamlessly. Holiness is the difference between a “good” person of God and a “good” Buddhist or atheist. Holiness makes a Christian shine and enrich the world as he was created to do, because he becomes Jesus’ hands, feet and love in the world.


If we’re not striving for holiness, are we really giving God our all?